


the best ever two father band out of philly

by jim_morrisenpai



Series: the gang has kids [3]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, i named the waitress, parenting, please do not misinterpret the oc tag, ridiculous baby names, they have a baby and it isn't canon i had to make a person, you should read the other two in this series first
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-06-13 20:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15372693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jim_morrisenpai/pseuds/jim_morrisenpai
Summary: What's better than having no dads?(Title inspired by The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton by The Mountain Goats.)





	1. Chapter 1

It’s four o’clock on a Tuesday, and Mac is tired, and he’s surrounded by three of his favorite idiots who are arguing over the name of an unborn child. Their unborn child. He stopped listening around ten minutes ago. Honestly, Mac wouldn’t mind if their child were named after a fruit at this point.

“No, Dee, listen, Banana is a really sweet middle name for a child. And it’s gender neutral!” Charlie says.

Well, maybe Mac would mind.

Before he can get to it, Dee says, “Oh, right Charlie, yeah. How about we just name her ‘Passion Fruit Banana Smoothie Kelly’ and see how that goes over at school, hm?”

Charlie smiles, and it’s evident to Mac that he’s ignoring the sarcasm when he replies, “Pretty sweet, right?”

“No dude, do you want her to go through the same kind of shit I had to go through with my name?” Mac argues.

“Well, to be fair, nothing we could possibly name her could be worse than your name,” Dee says pointedly, and the waitress is laughing.

“Shut up! My name is awesome and my parents are awesome for naming me and they both totally love me so shut up!”

Charlie sighs and puts a hand on Mac’s shoulder, using his other hand to turn Mac’s face towards him. “Babe, chill. You hate it too.” And like that, Mac is taking a deep breath and looking back at Charlie with his puppy dog eyes, the ones that say I love you, and Charlie remembers why this is happening. “What do you think her name should be?”

Mac thinks for a moment. “I don’t know. A normal little girl name, I guess. Like, Hannah or something.”

Charlie’s eyes light up and he throws his hands up. Dee and the waitress smile at an actual normal name suggestion.

“I love it. I don’t know about you guys, but I think,” and at this Charlie seems choked up, as if he’s gonna cry, and all Mac can think is please don’t cry so I won’t cry, “I think Hannah Banana is the cutest name in the entire goddamn world, and I’m gonna be a father, and I’m really gonna do my best. It’s gotta be easier than anything to protect a perfect little baby named Hannah Banana.”

And now, the waitress is looking at Charlie in confusion, and clearly this wasn’t exactly what Dee was expecting either, but it looks like both of them are in the same boat Mac is in, completely unwilling to tell Charlie he can’t name his daughter after a fruit. But come on, they have to try, right?

“Hon-”

“Charlie, that’s a really dumb name,” the waitress points out without venom, and she’s almost smiling, and none of them are ever going to be able to win against Charlie at this point, Mac can tell.

“Yeah, why not make her middle name Anne? You know, since she never got much use out of the name,” Dee says, pointing a thumb at the waitress, and oh right, Mac is supposed to remember to call her that or Dee is going to kill him.

“Hannah Anne is a stupid name, Dee,” Mac says, and oh shit, he’s on Charlie’s side with this? What has love done to him?

(Nothing at all. He’s been taking Charlie’s side more often than not since the third grade, regardless of whether or not his argument makes sense.)

Even so, Charlie looks at him fondly, and leans his head on Mac’s shoulder, and oh man. It’s really settled.

“Hannah Banana really is a cute name,” Mac admits, against his better judgment.

Dee groans, Anne shakes her head, and Charlie nods with vigor.

Their daughter is named after a fruit.

 

It’s late, and Mac is trying to sleep, but he absolutely can’t stop thinking about being a parent. His parents tried, he thinks, but he wants to try more than they did. He’s holding Charlie close and thinking about him too, about how he’s learning to read and catching on really fast, now that Mac has switched to books typed with fonts that are easier for dyslexic people to read. Mac is so proud of him, and he just knows that they’re both going to do a great job, but they need to do better than their parents did, somehow.

“Mac, oh rugged beast, you’re thinking way too loud,” Charlie mumbles sweetly, kissing one of Mac’s muscled arms absentmindedly.

“You can’t hear my thoughts. You’re not an X-men character.”

“No,” Charlie admits. “But I can tell you’re not asleep because you’re too tense and pensive.”

“When did ‘pensive’ become a part of your vocabulary?”

“When you started thinking too much about everything all the time.”

And Mac knows that Charlie is right about that to some degree. Sometimes, Mac still gets nervous to hold Charlie’s hand in public, and he knows that isn’t fair to Charlie. They’ve been holding hands since they were kids, because Charlie has always had a habit of wandering off and getting lost. He can tell it stings when someone walks past and he drops Charlie’s hand, only because he can read Charlie like a book and knows damn well when the kid is trying to hide his pain. Thankfully, Mac has gotten a lot better at it. There’s a voice in his head that still bothers him about it, shouting about how God probably doesn’t love him anymore, but the louder one is always shouting about Charlie’s freckles, and his perfect voice, and what a clueless dumbass he is. Sometimes they have to kiss in public, or else Mac feels like his heart is going to explode. Mac loves him so much.

“Charlie, I love you so much.”

Charlie kisses Mac’s eyelid, like a weirdo. “I love you too. Are you nervous about Hannah Banana?”

“Yeah, a little. I’m just worried about how, like, fucked up our childhoods were.”

“That’s definitely valid, but I think we’re good. No stealing or prostitution on Christmas, right?”

“Right. No dealing drugs and going to jail, right?”

“Yeah, see babe? We got it all figured out,” Charlie says sleepily, drawing out the last three words in a singsong voice.

Mac nods and kisses Charlie so he won’t have to think about it anymore, because the last thing he needs right now is to overthink things.

 

They do end up finding a house near a school, and although the bar isn’t doing any better than it ever has, Mac was able to find a second job as a karate instructor a few months ago, which makes affording to rent it more feasible. They have the option to buy later, which would be nice, but Mac doesn’t really see it as a financial possibility in their lifetimes, unless they hit the lottery. Charlie is still laughing about how Mac, a man with virtually no karate skills, managed to get a job as an instructor. Charlie is applying everywhere for janitor work, which Mac thinks is funny because the chances of him finding a worse job than the one he had at their bar were very slim. Taking care of the bar’s hygiene was a nearly impossible task for everyone but Charlie, and he really didn’t make that much from it. Working anywhere else was going to be simple enough for him, considering how well he thrived working as a janitor at a school a while back.

(They don’t talk about the mail room gig. It causes an argument every time, and Mac would rather make out with Charlie than argue about something stupid that Mac is clearly right about.)

Charlie knows he isn’t going to be able to have two jobs when Hannah is born, but he also knows that having a kid is expensive. It’s in the middle of Charlie having a crisis about their financial situation in their living room that Mac has an idea.

“I have an idea, dude,” he says, poking Charlie’s shoulder.

“No dealing drugs, no prostitution, remember?”

“Yeah, no, I know. That isn’t it. We need to get Frank’s blessing.”

Squinting, Charlie scratches his head. “What? What blessing?”

“You know how in romance movies, the guy always has to get the girl’s dad’s permission to marry her?”

“What romance movie did that happen in?”

“A ton of them, babe, that isn’t important. What’s important is-”

“But if it’s a whole lot of movies that this happens in, why can’t you name one so I can know what you’re talking about?”

Mac takes a deep breath. “Listen Charlie, give me a minute here and I’ll try to think of one of the thousands of movies that it definitely happens in. First, though, I really gotta explain this plan before I forget it. Okay?”

Charlie shrugs and nods. “Okay, okay.”

“Alright. We need to get Frank’s blessing. Frank still has a ton of money, we need to be on his good side to get him to give us some.”

“But what does that have to do with-”

“Shh. Now, right now we are not on the best terms with Frank. He has accused me of ‘stealing’ you from him about eighty times in the last two months alone. He’s upset with you for not telling him you liked guys because you guys slept in the same bed together-”

“Which is irrelevant to him, but continue.”

“Absolutely irrelevant to him, there’s no reason he should give a shit. But I bet it’s just him being bitter that he doesn’t have anyone to eat cat food with anymore. So we need to figure out how to make him get over it, and accept us as people who are gonna leech off his money again.”

“Okay, but what’s this whole thing about the marriage? Who’s getting married here?”

Mac shook his head and wrapped an arm around Charlie. “Don’t worry about it, it was more of a jumping-off point to a different idea and you don’t understand it. It’s not a big deal, if I can think of a movie it happens in we’ll watch it."

Leaning into his touch, Charlie closes his eyes and tries to convince himself that everything will be okay.

“Everything will be okay,” Mac whispers, as if reading his mind.

“Can you read minds?”

“I’m not an X-men, Charlie.”

“If it was just one, wouldn’t it be an X-man?”


	2. Chapter 2

Getting on Frank’s good side is harder than Mac expected.

He isn’t exactly a materialistic person, in the typical sense of the word. The only thing Mac can think of getting him is a new toe knife, which is disgusting and probably wouldn’t get a good reaction, considering Charlie says that Frank already has a perfectly functioning toe knife at the apartment. Just trying to come up with a gift is making Mac violently ill to even think about.

Charlie decides to try dumpster diving to find Frank a totally awesome secondhand gift, which Mac hates supervising.

“I hate this, dude, what kind of useful shit could you possibly even find here?”

“Well, first of all, I never invited you.”

“Well, first of all, you could fall into a trash bag full of broken glass, and nobody would expect anyone to be at a garbage dump, so you could bleed out here alone. Among a ton of other possible hazards that could take place at a dump.”

Instead of arguing that, Charlie looks at Mac, chest heavy, and smiles ridiculously. “Hey, I can take care of myself, I’ve done this a lot of times, okay? Alright, you brutally powerful dork?”

Mac looks down and allows himself to smile a little. “You’re the dork.”

“But, uh, second of all, Frank actually does really love cool trash.” Picking up a rusty, open toolbox, Charlie gestures. “Look how cool!”

Mac just shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips. “Very cool, sure.”

“Just you wait, I’m gonna find exactly what we need.”

 

By the end of the day, Charlie is dragging a black garbage bag of disgusting treasures over his shoulder, looking like a small, youthful Santa Claus of Garbage.

(Mac can’t bring himself to say Santa Claus around Charlie, and when he hears somebody else bring the guy up, he always checks to see if Charlie needs to be somewhere else. He’s not sure what Christmas is gonna be like for Hannah yet.)

They head to Frank’s apartment, which Charlie promises is never locked, but Mac makes sure to knock because hello, manners, and plus who knows what Frank could be doing. Or who he could be doing.

“Who’s there?”

“Mac and Charlie,” Mac answers.

Frank opens the door. “Fuck off.”

Charlie waves at Frank. “Heyo, I brought you some cool trash, like an apology for moving out and being gay.”

“Except he isn’t apologizing for being gay, because that’s fine, it’s cool that he is,” Mac adds helpfully.

“Yeah, but I should have told you, even though it doesn’t make a difference, since you’re almost a father figure to me,” Charlie continues, gesturing goofily with one hand, the other holding a bag of trash.

“I’m not your father,” Frank says in a serious tone. “Now gimme the trash and get outta here.”

Sighing, Charlie hands Frank the bag. “You know how I’m gonna be a dad and stuff?”

Frank shakes his head as he takes it. “That's got nothin’ to do with me.”

“Yeah, alright. But her name is Hannah Banana, and I think it would be cool if you were her fairy godfather.”

Mac blinks and turns quickly to look at Charlie. Frank pauses in closing the door. “You- what the hell did you just say?”

“Babe,” Mac whispers to Charlie. “It’s just a godfather.”

Clearing his throat, Charlie tries again. “Would you want to be her godfather?”

Frank starts laughing. “What did you say her name’s gonna be?”

Mac smiles. “Hannah Banana Kelly.”

Dropping the bag and the door handle, Frank falls on the floor laughing, rolling around like a huge weird beetle stuck on its back. Mac and Charlie just watch him, smiling at the absurdity. A few minutes pass, and when he finally gets up there are tear streaks down his face. “Jesus christ, Charlie, you really done it this time.”

“What did I do?” Charlie asks, still smiling but downright puzzled.

Mac drops his smile and glares at Frank as if to dare him to tell Charlie that he can’t name his daughter after a fruit.

Frank shrugs. “You know what Charlie? Don’t worry about it. Sure, I’ll be her godfather, whatever. You two are a weird couple, but it makes sense I guess.” He points at Mac. “You didn’t have to turn him gay though, you two could have been hetero life partners.”

Inhaling impatiently, Mac looks at the ceiling. Charlie puts a hand on his shoulder and points at Frank with the other hand.

“If he turned me gay, he did it when we were in the tenth grade, and it definitely wasn’t on purpose because he was extremely repressed at that point.”

Frank just shakes his head and pulls out a trash relic. “Aw, Charlie! A broken lava lamp? These are your favorite!”

“Yeah, I know, but you always seemed jealous of how good I am at finding them. I figured I’d get you one. That bag is full of really cool stuff, man.”

 

Dee and Anne manage to set up a good enough baby shower to get some diapers and other much-needed baby supplies from a few select ‘friends and family.’ Meaning, Artemis invites her entire weird family and they all chip in. Which, really, they appreciate. They honestly weren’t expecting a lot.

The next few months pass really quickly. Charlie and Mac are both always working, coming home, watching TV and falling asleep together after having sleepover talks. Charlie really does feel like he’s trapped in the best and longest sleepover of all time, without the unnecessary homophobic elements that always seemed to lurk when they were kids. Charlie seriously loves being able to finally kiss Mac without worrying. When winter shows up, Mac seriously loves being able to snuggle with Charlie at every opportunity.

They both really love having their very own house. Everything feels so… comfy. Being able to relax in a towel after a shower and waltz around the house carelessly. Mac trying to make dinner and burning everything. Charlie taking out the trash just because it’s what he’s used to doing, never because he feels like he has to.

Arguments come and go, like usual. When Dennis is over, Charlie feels like something is different between the three of them. Mac doesn’t say much about Charlie’s reading difficulties anymore, but Dennis seems to say enough about it for both of them. Charlie figures it’s probably hard for Dennis to not be able to make fun of his hygiene anymore, so he thinks he understands. Mac, on the other hand, has threatened to kick Dennis off their property more than once for it. An overreaction, Charlie tells him, but Mac insists on having authority over Dennis in the matter. Plus, Mac points out, Charlie’s learning really quickly, and it isn’t fair for Dennis to say shit like that when he had no idea what it was like, growing up with half a parent.

Dennis brings his son over sometimes, and the gang loves him. Brian Jr. really is a good kid, and he gets along with Anne because he doesn’t struggle to remember her name like the gang always does. Sometimes he plays dress up with Aunt Dee, and sometimes he plays karate with Mac, and sometimes Charlie shows him how to play the keyboard. Dennis refuses to let Frank interact with his son, calling him a “bad influence.” Sometimes, Dennis tries to teach Brian different types of drinks, but his attention span is too short to understand that a Scooby Snack is more than a biscuit in a kid’s cartoon.

Charlie doesn’t really think Dennis is a very great father, but he really doesn’t know a whole lot about fathers, and he thinks Dennis is trying his best, mostly. Which, Charlie is learning, is all anyone can really do as a parent.

Mac has been buying books on parenting and reading them to Charlie when they have the opportunity. Anne is due soon, and Mac and Charlie don’t really feel ready yet. The books say this is normal, so they try not to worry about it too much.

“So, we’re definitely celebrating Christmas with her, right?” Mac asks one day, when they get to a ‘religion’ section in one of the parenting books. They’re sharing the couch, Charlie lying on Mac, as Mac holds the book just above Charlie’s head.

Charlie hesitates and looks at him, then says, “Yeah, dude, of course. Christmas is like, our holiday, you know? But we gotta take her to throw rocks at trains, right?”

Something clicks in Mac’s mind, but he doesn’t recognize what it was that clicked when he says, “Duh, obviously. But I was wondering, what are we gonna tell her about, you know.”

Charlie isn’t sure he does know, but Mac really doesn’t want to spell it out for him, so he saves the Santa talk for another day. Charlie shrugs and rests his head on Mac’s chest. Mac moves a little so he can breathe, then holds the book with one hand so he can pet Charlie’s hair with the other.

They fall asleep like that, the book left open on Charlie’s head.

 

They also wake up like that, to the home phone ringing in their ears. Mac sort of shoves Charlie off of him so he can get the phone. There’s a sound of protest, and a book hitting the floor, then Charlie curls in on himself like a cat.

“Hullo?” Mac mumbles, before catching sight of the digital clock on the end table. “Who is this? Do you know what time it is?”

“Yeah, guess what, asshole? I don’t care what time it is, Anne’s water broke. She’s in the hospital and I just thought I should let you two boners know.”

“It’s four in the morning, Dee, you goddamn-” Mac’s tired brain catches up to his mouth. “Oh, oh holy shit. Uh, okay, what hospital?”

“It’s that one they kicked me out of for not having health insurance. The same one I gave birth at.”

The one we always take Charlie to, Mac thinks absently. “Alright, we’re on our way, okay?”

“I mean, alright, but she probably won’t have the baby until tomorrow.”

“It already is tomorrow,” Mac points out. “Look, we’ll just wait it out with you, okay?”

“Whatever.” Dee hangs up.

Mac sets the phone down and walks back to the couch to shake Charlie awake. Charlie whines and bats a hand out to shoo him away.

“Sugar pie honey bunch,” Mac coaxes in a sing-song voice. “Come on, you gotta get up for Hannah Banana.”

“School hasn’t started yet,” Charlie argues nonsensically.

“No, but we’re gonna be dads, dude, remember?”

When all he gets is a lazy ‘mm-hm’ in response, Mac sighs and picks Charlie up, carrying him to the shitty car he had to buy when they realized other jobs wouldn’t let them get away with being late because of the bus schedule.

Charlie is more awake by the time they meet Dee at the hospital, although it hardly matters considering how long they end up waiting. They live on vending machine snacks and drinks for almost fourteen hours before they finally hear Anne weakly say, “Hey guys.”

The three of them turn to see her, exhausted in a wheelchair that a doctor is wheeling, holding the tiniest little baby Mac has ever seen in his life. Dee smiles and walks over to her. “So, how was childbirth?”

Anne scoffs. “Horrible, but definitely worth it. Look at her.”

Charlie takes Mac’s hand and pulls him over to see her, but it’s difficult, because Mac seems to be moving in slow motion. His eyes are already welling up, so Charlie smiles at him and squeezes his hand. Mac looks at him, then at Hannah, and says, “She’s the smallest little baby in the world, oh my god.”

Admittedly, Mac hasn’t seen a lot of babies. In reality, Hannah Banana is probably a normal-sized infant. Her eyes are still shut, and she has some dark hair on the top of her head. The fact of the matter is that right now, Mac feels brutally powerful, definitely too powerful to hold a baby, especially that terribly important baby. He feels like if he even tries to hold her, he’ll accidentally hurt her somehow, like that guy in the Steinbeck book they had to read in middle school, the one he read to Charlie that made them both cry. He whispers to Charlie that he feels too strong to touch her, but Charlie shakes his head.

“Dude, that’s just because you’re full of power to protect her, you know? You’re not gonna hurt her,” Charlie whispers back, kissing his cheek. Mac starts sobbing, and it’s the worst and so embarrassing, but Charlie is holding him and whispering more nice things, so it really isn’t too bad.

Dee teases Mac about it for the rest of their lives. Which also really isn’t too bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks 4 reading!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! leave a comment and let me know what you think so far!  
> shout out to [charlie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggutart/pseuds/eggutart) who is a wonderful beta AS WELL AS ALREADY BEING A TERRIFIC CHARMAC AUTHOR ALL AROUND


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